Anti-malware programs have been around for some time. With the wide-spread use of computers, some misguided individuals and/or enterprises have employed a variety of techniques to spread malware to computers of unsuspecting users. As the term is employed herein, malware refers to malicious, harmful and/or undesirable executables and/or data, including for example and without limitation computer virus, spy programs, unsolicited advertisements, advertising executables, undesirable content, etc.
Anti-malware programs are designed to detect and/or eliminate malware. Detection is typically accomplished via the scanning of files and folders for malware using a periodically updated malware definition file (such as a virus definition file). By comparing the file being scanned with the malware definition file, patterns suggestive of malware may be detected. If malware is detected in a given file, the file can be flagged for attention (which may include, for example, repair or deletion).
Generally speaking, it is possible to specify that every file and folder on the entire disk should be scanned. In fact, experts in malware prevention suggest that a comprehensive disk scan should be performed with the most updated malware definition file from time to time.
However, as the role of the computer changes from a purely text-based calculating machine to a rich, multimedia business and entertainment device, the number of files stored on a given user's computer has increased greatly in recent years. As a result, the size of the hard drive or other forms of storage required to store these files has also increased correspondingly. For example, while a typical user may be satisfied with a 20-gigabyte hard drive only a few years ago, the same user today may find a computer having less than 100 gigabytes of hard drive storage to be unduly restricting.
Performing a comprehensive disk scan on a large hard drive that may store tens of thousands of large files is a time-consuming task. Further, while the computer is busy scanning files, the processing and storage bandwidth available to perform other tasks on behalf of the user is reduced.
To alleviate user frustration, manufacturers have been attempting to find ways to speed up the scanning process so as to reduce the amount of time the user computer needs to devote to scanning files. One way to reduce the amount of scanning (and correspondingly the scanning time) is to allow the user to specify which folder should be scanned, and optionally the type(s) of files to be scanned. By scanning only a specified subset of all available files or only a specified subset of all available folders, the scanning can be accomplished in less time and with less impact to the computing and processing bandwidth.
Generally speaking, users have been able to specify to the anti-malware program the network path of the folder to be scanned. As mentioned, many anti-malware programs also allow the user to specify the type of files to be scanned (e.g., emails, executables, image files, PDF files, etc.) and even the exact name of the file(s) to be scanned. The user may communicate the user's selection of the folders or files for scanning using, for example, a dialog box provided by the malware program.
However, as the number and types of files increase and as hard drives get larger over time, it has been difficult for a typical user to remember all the names of files and folders to properly instruct the anti-malware program with regard to which folder(s) and which file(s)/file type(s) should be scanned. Yet, if the user forgets a particular folder or a particular file and consequently fails to specify to the anti-malware program of the identity of one of the folders and/or files(s) to be scanned, there is a risk that the scan may fail to detect malware since the malware may lurk in one of the folders that the user failed to designate to the anti-malware program for scanning.